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boyfriend; she didn’t doubt he would find out about it sooner or later but for now he was still pumped up on the adulation of the orbiter mission.
     
    The following day saw the final Council meeting before landing. Arianna was purposefully late so she did not have to encounter Sol in an empty room and as a result was one of the last to arrive. She glared at Sol across the table but the police officer had his head down and refused to meet her gaze. After a few minutes of pleasantries and platitudes mostly centred around Sol and Bratten Jorg, Admiral Kalp called the meeting to order. Top of the agenda was an analysis of the data sent back from the computers on board the orbiter. The geologist Prima Blak took the floor. “Some of this we already know, but I shall recap,” she began insightfully. “The planet Hearthstone is relatively small in circumference, being around the size of Mars. It consists of a single large continent mostly situated in the northern hemisphere but also cutting some way into the southern. Three large mountain ranges zigzag across the continent. Much of the continent is underlain with a granite floor that eventually rises up into the mountain ranges. A curious feature of this planet is the large number of labyrinthine caves which are numerous almost everywhere except in the desert regions.”
    “Caves which the scans have shown are ripe with raw materials,” said Jared Bynce the mining councillor. “Precious stones, fossil fuels, you name it. And the natural caves means we don’t have to tunnel nearly so much. Half the job has been done for us.”
    “Sounds like it was made for us,” said Admiral Kalp serenely. “It is just as well we don’t have religion anymore otherwise I might start talking about divine providence.”
    Everybody laughed.
    “I noticed from the scans a multitude of river valleys provide fertile grassland and plains,” said the city planner Jung Pepp. “Needless to say it is these areas in which we are most interested for the purposes of our initial habitation. I have primarily located a spot near the fork of a river which is also within two miles of fertile forests and caves. Truth be told there are so many prime locations I consider us spoilt for choice. However my recommendation is that we form the city somewhere along the line of seventy degrees north ad sixty miles from the first mountain ranges but close enough to the cave network so that we might commence mining operations for plant-based fossil fuels. We should situate ourselves close to the wide river whilst giving ourselves enough plain to expand into once the opportunity allows.”
    The council murmured approvingly. The Admiral turned to the naturalist Banda Ure. “What of climate?” She asked.
    “The temperature is currently warm but there is evidence of annual mild winters,” she replied. “There is a moon situated relatively close to the planet which causes large waves and makes the coastline quite a rough and unpredictable place. The fact of it being predominantly rocky also advises against attempting settlement beside the sea. You may also like to know the planet takes three hundred and twenty-five days to orbit its sun. We should plan out the calendar accordingly.”
    The Admiral nodded. “Was there anything else in the data?” She asked, looking perceptively towards Arianna. “Anything unusual we ought to be made aware of? Any kinds of electro-magnetic pulses, unusual surface activity, unexplained objects or occurrences?”
    “Not that we’ve seen,” replied the administration councillor Magnuj Bol. “I’ve had my people studying the data with a fine toothed comb all night and there isn’t anything turning up that we cannot explain. The planet is perfect, Admiral. We are all going to thrive down there.”
     
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    “Ladies and gentlemen; this is your Admiral speaking. We are now preparing to make landfall. Would all colonists please pack their things into the lockers provided and make